Black and Asian people
children aged one to four
babies under the age of one not getting vitamin D through formula milk
people whose skin has little exposure to the Sun
everyone else in autumn and winter
The researchers looked at multivitamins and vitamin D supplements marketed at children aged under 12 and sold at Asda, Morrisons, Ocado, Sainsbury's, Tesco, Boots, Holland and Barrett, Lloyds Pharmacy and Superdrug and found:

Among the 67 multivitamin products, the daily vitamin D dose ranged from zero to 800 IU
Only one multivitamin was suitable for use from birth - and this supplied 200 IU per day
For children aged under six months, only one multivitamin contained more than 340 IU
Among the 24 specific vitamin-D products and vitamins marketed as being for healthy bones, the vitamin D content ranged from 50 to 1,000 IU
Six products of these were suitable from birth, of which five contained 340 to 400 IU per day - the recommended amount
Writing in the Archives of Disease in Childhood journal, the authors said: "Multivitamins typically had lower vitamin D content than pure vitamin D supplements or 'healthy bones' products, although some products labelled as 'for bones' contained very low levels of vitamin D."

To obtain the correct dose, they said, children "would either have to take over the recommended dose, which may increase the risk of toxicity from the other components, or they would have to take a combination of vitamin D and multivitamins, which is more expensive".

Vitamin D supplements are provided free to low income families on the government's Healthy Start scheme. But the researchers found the vitamins provided by the scheme gave only 300 IU per day of vitamin D.